Castellani

Michele Castellani

With hard work and enthusiasm, the foundation is laid of what is now the excellent Michele Castellani winery. This means for Sergio and his sons renewing the dream every day with passion for their work, and ongoing product and process innovation.

Set up in Valgatara in 1945 by its founder Michele, the winery has indeed transformed itself, thanks to the substantial investments in the vineyards and in equipment made by his far-sighted successors, into a state-of-the-art winery that makes the most of the excellent raw material provided by the about 40 hectares of directly owned or grown vineyards.

Sergio Castellani, with his wife Maria, continues today the wine business and manages the family-run company through all the wine making stages. Together with his children Michele, (in the winery), Martina (administrative department) and Mara (International Sales Manager), the success in Italy and abroad confirms the validity of the project.

The CASTELLANI MICHELE estate consists of about 40 hectares of directly owned or grown vineyards situated in the hillside area of the Valpolicella Classica. The planting system is pergola except for few vineyards that are cultivated with the ‘Guyot’ system. The main varieties cultivated by the company are: Corvina, Corvinone, Rondinella and Molinara.

An enlightening metaphor for the respect for tradition & the vision for the future is represented in the new vineyard at Maso, in the area of Negrar. It is a real natural amphitheatre which, with its sunny south/south-west exposure and its view over the hills from Verona to Lake Garda, seems to be the ideal stage to present the best of the local wine production to the world.

Both the new vineyard and the well renowned ones at Cà del Pipa and Castei, in the heart of Valpolicella Classica, present high quality geo-morphological and viticultural features. There include; ideal exposure, constant ventilation, soils with a well-balanced composition both in terms of nutrients and draining capacity, and carefully-chosen training systems depending on the vine variety (“Pergoletta” for Corvina, Corvinone and Rondinella, ‘Guyot’ for grapes like Oseleta or Croatina) with very excellent planting densities.

We combine these characteristics with selective winter pruning and summer thinning operations aimed at controlling the natural growth. The winery practices the selection of the best harvesting times, depending on the grapes phenolic and aromatic maturity, enabling the company to harvest grapes at the peak of their organoleptic potential.